Suspicion in Sunless Skies

Firstly, congratulations to FBG for the continued success of the Kickstarter campaign! Here's to Skies being a greater success than even Sunless Sea!

Now, my question: with Smuggling confirmed as a gameplay feature, will Menaces:Suspicion be reworked in the major port cities?

From my experience in Sunless Sea, the Suspicion mechanic has two major flaws:1. there are no easy ways to reduce it besides London in Glory; and consequently2. it is far too easy to avoid Suspicion penalties such as the Revenue Men and the Ministry of Public Decency. While the accumulated Suspicion does make it a lot more difficult to pass the Veils test option, a player will generally be able to bypass the Revenue Men either with easily-acquired Admiralty Favours or University favours. Similarly in the case of honey smugglers, the profit from selling a mere two vials of red honey are enough to completely negate the bribery penalty imposed by the Ministry of Public Decency.

Another weakness is that London Suspicion only became a problem if you did prolonged smuggling. The occasional bit of honey selling or Port Carnelian intrigue does not really give you enough suspicion to be a problem. Also, London Suspicion only impacted smuggling operations. It didn't make the Admiralty wary of working with you or cause you any other problems.

That's a pretty interesting question actually. Would suspicion carry over from one port to another, or be tracked individually in each? How about a Suspicion with a capital S for breaking Judgemental law, maybe worsening the effects of sunlight? Also, it could be cool to have some kind of pirate/smuggler havens where a certain level of suspicion would be a prerequisite for entering, forcing you to weigh the benefits of access against the detrimental effects of suspicion.edited by John Moose on 4/11/2017